I should have known it'd be something self-centred and stupid when 75% of people in the NZ Herald Digi-Poll said they supported it. Basically, a whole bunch of truckies blocked the main roads of nearly every city in the country, emitting ghastly noises and smells, because they were protesting against increased road charges for diesel-fueled vehicles. Never mind the fact that people who use petrol have already had to wear these charges at the petrol-pump! Never mind the fact that both cars and trucks are already polluting the atmosphere with their dependence on fossil fuels. Never mind the fact that increases in fuel prices are beyond the control of NZ politicians, depending as they do on resources and events overseas. The truckies were bad enough. The cheering schoolchildren and honking-in-support car-drivers made it even worse. Why are people so moronic? And why oh why when a village of relatively powerless and impoverished people WALKED to Parliament last year to protest against the treatment they had received during the extremely heavy-handed so-called terror raids, were these same morons lining the streets to hurl abuse at them? Sometimes I think it will be a good day for the planet indeed when we eventually blow ourselves up through some act of mindless stupidity...
Friday, July 4, 2008
Truckies blockade
Good Lord. Just when I thought the spirit of protest in NZ was dead and buried under the weight of apathy and concern over the price of cheese, the truck-drivers of NZ forced me to re-evaluate. So what cause was it that brought traffic in cities around the country to a standstill and earned the overwhelming support of put-out commuters and spectators alike? Perhaps its was environmental, feminist, Maori? Yeah right.
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4 comments:
That final sentence of your post brings that t-shirt slogan, 'liberal and miserable' to mind.
curious - this is my blog and i can say what i like. if you don't like it, don't read it and save me the bother of having to reply to your insulting comments. and yes it does make me miserable that selfish people like the truckers concerned (but not only them) are only out for themselves and not thinking about the geo-political / environmental ramifications of what they're doing. But I guess they're probably as ill-informed as you are.
By the way that was from me not from dan (as is this) - I've just used his account.
Sorry - no offence intended. The phrase was meant to be expressed in a light hearted fashion (in fact I think the t-shirt itself is supposed to be ironic - as the wearers are usual liberal minded themselves) but as often happens text written on a computer does not effectively convey tone. BUT when you're talking about blowing up the planet (admittedly also being flippant) just 'cause a bunch of morons launch an ill-informed protest - I was trying to think of a witty way to say lighten up!
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